4 Hard Downs: We Broke Our Bed, New Sandwich Fave, NFL Makes It Easy & What's Up At Bama
Ham & Swiss, Getting back into the NFL, Mother's Day recap
You’re reading this the day after Mother’s Day. Hello, and happy belated to all who celebrate. Also thoughts out to folks who are without their mothers; after losing both grandmothers while I was in Chicago and half of the times I got to go visit my family were for those funerals.
It can really suck, so you’re not alone.
Mother’s Day, in the Felder household, has basically been an extended situation. This is the puzzle table I built for my wife that was already in-use before we got to Mother’s Day. Notice my fine fine craftsmanship that I was able to create rounded edges with a Dremel and a sander. Note the terrible, graffiti-esque spray painting on the back that no one will ever see, except here, but doing it did make me happy.
Yes, it is chalkboard paint.
Now, why was this an extended situation? Well, it started early with prepping the table and getting that done. Had to beat the rain since I don’t have an indoor workshop. Then on actual Mother’s Day, we went to a late lunch with my mom.
And, then, later this week we are going to lunch, just the three of us, for my wife’s Mother’s Day meal at Cowfish, her favorite place.
That’s basically just over a week of Mother’s Day. But, what can you do, you love these ladies and what my baby wants, my baby gets. Baby meaning my mom, my wife and my kid (who has spirit week, this week and I guess is going to lunch in her pajamas because Tuesday is pajama day at school).
Hope all who celebrate had a good one but now it is time to SPOT THE BALL!!
1st Down: We Broke Our Bed, But I Fixed It
Cue the bah-chickah-wah-wah, except don’t. The “we” in this instance is my kid and, to a much lesser extent, me. She jumps on the bed during self-proclaimed “hurting time” and our bed had finally had enough. The 3 composite slats under the box spring decided, “not today,” and two of them decided to snap as the small mini-posts in the middle bent sideways under the weight and force.
This was Thursday.
The type of person I am? I said, we can make it to the weekend.
We did not make it to the weekend.
After 1 night of sleeping where the bed was basically uselessly funneling me and my wife into the middle and making my already hurt shoulder hurt more, Friday I woke up ready for action.
No more particle board slats, proper decking. Like what you build a deck out of to put a grill on and host a cook out (not a barbecue, that is food, you host a cook out on your deck). No more 1-by for support in the middle, a 4x4 post under each slat. No more single drilled holes, drilled two holes with reinforced bolts for each slat.
Slept like a baby on Friday night after a long day.
And once we get past Mother’s Day that lasts 10 days, I can finish this project because I have more reinforcing to do. As the Lowe’s associate said when I asked him about wood screws and explained my plans, “You get 4 of these suckers in each post, with the bolts on the side, that decking with double 4x4, son, and it ain’t going nowhere.”
So that is my next week. Will update. We’re fixed, we will be airtight by the next version of 4 Hard Downs.
2nd Down: Ham & Swiss Goes Hard on Croissant Bread
We have talked the Croissant Bread before here, so I figured let’s see what this stuff can do aside from the pigs in a blanket I made and just eating it with butter.
Yes, I put butter on slices of croissant bread that is packed with butter and it is delicious.
I have been working on cleaning out the freezer and came across the leftover ham, that I did not smoke for Easter. Hello ham and swiss sammies.
Then I thought, what about on the croissant bread.
Then I thought, what about doing them like a savory french toast, the way a Kentucky Hot Brown do.
So, I did it.
For the egg wash, instead of using brown sugar, cinnamon or powdered sugar like I do with breakfast/brunch french toast, I went rosemary, Texas Pete, salt and bourbon.
Assembled the sandwiches and threw in some shredded white cheddar from the farmer’s market that was hanging around with the Swiss on the top.
Used a bacon press to mash them down and get some melt to the cheese.
Delicious. Smokey and gooey
3rd Down: This Alabama QB Situation Feels Bizarre
If you’ve been engulfed by Mother’s Day, personal shit or with the NBA Playoffs, I have, or the NFL Draft, I have, or MLB, I’m getting back into it, you might have missed some big CFB news. Notre Dame’s quarterback Tyler Buchner is transferring to Alabama.
Literally the news broke on the day of the NFL Draft so I didn’t get to react to it until later because, well, I was busy getting mentally broken trying to put together player comps for the big day.
So, now that things have died down, Buchner to Bama. I think there are several levels here, which we will also hit on Wednesday when we get to the podcast.
-Tommy Rees is the new OC, who previously worked with Buchner
-Nick Saban recruited Buchner initially
-Current QBs are not serving “Bryce Young vibes” coming out of spring
Jalen Milroe and Ty Simpson are both highly touted recruits who got some garbage time, Milroe moreso than Simpson. But Milroe also was a big part of Alabama surviving against Texas A&M after Young was nursing an injury and couldn’t go. He was 12-19 for 111 yards with 3 TDs and 1 interception in his only real time action.
Apparently neither has picked up the new offense well and Buchner is coming in to be a part of the room. Still waiting on this fall battle to see who wins out, but the more interesting part of this, for me, is how uncomfortable Nick Saban must be.
Since Alabama took off in 2008 they have been quite consistent at QB. John Parker Wilson gave way to Greg McElroy who gave way to AJ McCarron (after a quick battle with Phillip Sims), with Blake Sims taking over. Enter the transfer Jacob Coker stepping into the roll then Jalen Hurts until Tua Tagovialoa leads us to Bryce Young.
That was a long way to get to the point that this is probably an infuriating situation for the coach who craves stability and hates questions. He is so confident in his system and when it fails, that’s a personal indictment of him making the wrong decision. Either by picking the wrong player in terms of skills and potential OR picking the wrong player in terms of work ethic to achieve the end goal.
4th Down: NFL Makes It Easy To Sell The Game
As I become increasingly immersed in the world of the NFL, being able to more readily hit on coordinators, schemes and roster moves plus forecasting reasons for picks and decisions it is clear:
The NFL Is Designed To Sell
Between the official NFL website, official team websites and every thing orbiting the game, like OurLads, PFF, Tankathon etc; they’re all built to streamline the information. This isn’t about looking at their rankings, it is truly just the information and ease of access.
Due to the fact roster transactions happen all the time, you can find them in one place. Same with depth chart changes. Same with coaching moves. There isn’t a lot of “oh I didn’t see that” going on if you are paying attention and cycling through.
That’s what I mean by designed to sell. They make it easy. With college football, the game I’ve covered for over a decade, you gotta search high and low. There’s a reason I know what the Dothan Eagle is and am familiar with The State plus all the SBNation blogs; it is about scouring for information.
Because there are 130+ individual programs and even still 12 plus Independents entities, there isn’t a real hard and fast easy way to consolidate. The two closest are CollegePressbox and when you’re looking at recruiting rankings, transfers or signees somewhere like 247Sports.
It is an interesting difference coming from CFB and introducing some NFL into the world. I’ve said many times that CFB is a regional sport that’s being pushed to a national audience. Which, I think, is amazing. Because now a kid in Miami can watch Oregon or UCLA without much hassle and that’s a positive.
But that beat person trying to preview the game is going to have to go several places to figure out what’s up with this out of region team.
Each conference is like their own small NFL; except they can’t even agree on injury reports being done, injury report nomenclature, posting of depth charts, changing of depth charts during the season or offseason practice reports.
Totally different world.
Overall, I’m excited to be doing more NFL with Inside Football, it is a thing I pushed against for a long time but the changing industry means changing me. Probably hurt my career, if I’m being candid, that I didn’t take that step earlier. But we’re gonna have some fun doing both and again, the ease with which the NFL makes info available is so different from college.
Thanks for checking it out. Subscribe. Podcast will hit on Wednesday. Play posted Thursday. Now that Mother’s Day is almost over for me, I am back on track and ready to add some bonus stuff into things.
Cheers!!